Sozialer Status und prosoziales Handeln: Ein Quasi-Experiment im Krankenhaus

Sociological, social psychological and economic research on the nexus between socioeconomic status and prosociality has so far provided contradictory findings. Some studies suggest that actors with a high socioeconomic status act more egoistically than actors with a lower socioeconomic status. Other studies find the opposite to be true. In contrast to previous research, which has worked with one-dimensional measures for socioeconomic status, this study examines prosocial behavior among occupational groups that have regular real-life contact in their workspace. About 150 hospital employees (physicians, nursing staff and nursing students) participated in experiments on altruistic giving in dictator games. The findings are surprisingly strong and clear-cut: Actors with higher social status act more prosocial than low-status actors. Furthermore, we find hardly any in-group effects, which have been repeatedly postulated. Our findings support the claim that high status promotes prosocial behavior. Also, they indicate that the inconclusive and in part contradictory findings provided by previous research stem to a considerable degree from deficient measures of social status and problematic experimental designs.     

Local power of panel unit root tests allowing for structural breaks

The asymptotic local power of least squares–based fixed-T panel unit root tests allowing for a structural break in their individual effects and/or incidental trends of the AR(1) panel data model is studied. Limiting distributions of these tests are derived under a sequence of local alternatives, and analytic expressions show how their means and variances are functions of the break date and the time dimension of the panel. The considered tests have nontrivial local power in a N^?1/2 neighborhood of unity when the panel data model includes individual intercepts. For panel data models with incidental trends, the power of the tests becomes trivial in this neighborhood. However, this problem does not always appear if the tests allow for serial correlation in the error term and completely vanishes in the presence of cross-section correlation. These results show that fixed-T tests have very different theoretical properties than their large-T counterparts. Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate the usefulness of the asymptotic theory in small samples.     

Ethnic Identity as a Predictor of Microaggressions Toward Blacks,Whites, and Hispanic LGBs by Blacks,Whites, and Hispanics

Results of the study suggest racial differences still exist when it comes to attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States. Findings indicate Black individuals hold significantly less favorable attitudes toward lesbian/gay/bisexual (LGB) individuals than non-Hispanic White individuals but not Hispanics, after controlling for demographics. Hispanic individuals’ attitudes toward LGBs were not significantly different from those of non-Hispanic Whites. Despite less favorable attitudes toward LGBs, however, Black Americans display a significantly lower likelihood of engaging in LGB-directed microaggressions than both non-Hispanic Whites and Hispanics. Finally, the results of the study indicate that as non-Hispanic White individuals’ ethnic identity gets stronger, their likelihood of engaging in microaggressions toward LGBs increases, more so than Black or Hispanic individuals.     

The Emerging Perspective of Governance and Poverty Alleviation: A Case of Bangladesh

The majority of the rural people in the developing world are subject to severe poverty, inequality and unemployment. Over the years, a number of institutional approaches have been experimented to eradicate poverty from society. Despite the historical role accorded to the state, the states in many developing countries have not been quite effective in poverty alleviation. Following the global trends many developing country states have created space for the market forces and civil society organizations to contribute to poverty alleviation. This is what is popularly known as the new perspective of governance. This article intends to analyze the new perspective of governance and its role in poverty alleviation with empirical evidence from Bangladesh.

A Bayesian method of distinguishing unit root from stationary processes based on panel data models with cross-sectional dependence

In this paper we develop a Bayesian approach to detecting unit roots in autoregressive panel data models. Our method is based on the comparison of stationary autoregressive models with and without individual deterministic trends, to their counterpart models with a unit autoregressive root. This is done under cross-sectional dependence among the error terms of the panel units. Simulation experiments are conducted with the aim to assess the performance of the suggested inferential procedure, as well as to investigate if the Bayesian model comparison approach can distinguish unit root models from stationary autoregressive models under cross-sectional dependence. The approach is applied to real exchange rate series for a panel of the G7 countries and to a panel of US nominal interest rates data.     

Bayesian Inference Under Partial Prior Information

Partial prior information on the marginal distribution of an observable random variable is considered. When this information is incorporated into the statistical analysis of an assumed parametric model, the posterior inference is typically non‐robust so that no inferential conclusion is obtained. To overcome this difficulty a method based on the standard default prior associated to the model and an intrinsic procedure is proposed. Posterior robustness of the resulting inferences is analysed and some illustrative examples are provided.     

Pharmaceutical Pricing in Europe: Weighing up the Options

Rising healthcare costs, particularly pharmaceutical expenditures, have led to the implementation of several pharmaceutical pricing regulations and policies throughout the world. This paper undertakes a critical review of current policies, along with a discussion of alternatives for both on‐patent and off‐patent drug pricing mechanisms. Traditional direct and indirect price controls have failed to balance the objectives of efficiency and equity. Direct price controls do not restrain growth of costs and may not address the need for innovation. Indirect price controls fail to contain costs and do little to create a competitive off‐patent pharmaceutical market. For the on‐patent drug markets, we evaluate the use of profit controls, government purchase or auction of patents and Ramsey pricing. Each of these has its own merit, yet the integration of the often separate price and reimbursement decision‐making processes would seem to hold the most promise for governments and purchasers to obtain value for money. This approach could send signals to the industry to help direct research towards clinically relevant areas.